The third pile quickly became the largest, and that was the, to put it politely, the bullshit pile. Applications for renovation of historical buildings (we'd chosen four buildings that were all less than forty years old, and had been office space or warehouses). Applications for request for historical status. Applications for the use of caustic chemicals, etc, etc, etc. It took me the rest of the morning, and about half of the afternoon, but at just before three o'clock, I carried the now much thinner pile out to Vanessa. "Here. Send these back to the city, with my thanks. The others will be filled out as needed in a timely fashion."
"You caught it too, huh?" Vanessa said. "You should have seen what I waded through. Whoever set it up thought they'd try and bury us by including a lot of the forms in triplicate. I had to empty the paper shredder twice to make room for it all."
"Thank you then. I'll have another load for you to shred here in a bit, the ones that I'm just calling bullshit on. Speaking of the community centers though, I think I'll give Gene over at the Spartans a visit, see if they're catching flack on this as well."
"Want me to give his office a call?" Vanessa asked.
I shook my head and turned to go back into my office. "No thanks. I'll handle this one myself."
I heard Vanessa get back to her work, and I closed my door. Going to the phone, I looked up Gene's phone number and dialed. "Gene?"
"Hello Tabby. How are things at MJT?"
"Great. By the way, I didn't take the chance to thank you yet for the tickets a few weeks ago. We enjoyed the game very much."
"For Patrick, anything. What can I do for you today?" Gene asked.
"Do you have some free time this afternoon? I had a massive form dump on my desk from the city office on the community center project, and wondered how the Spartans are doing on it, and maybe see if I could pick your brain for some advice."
"I've got some time at about five o'clock, the team's at practice and a lot of the office staff have left. If you want, we can watch from the stands even, they're doing walk-throughs in preparation for Saturday's game."
"You're playing on Saturday? Isn't that college time?" I asked, surprised.
Gene laughed. "I see you're an even bigger fan than I thought. Yeah, the league did it because the NCAA scheduled nothing big for this holiday weekend. So the league is getting double TV coverage, including a Saturday prime time game. We're kicking off against Oakland at seven."
"Sure, I'll be there. Mind if I wear my suit?" I asked. "I don't have my Spartans t-shirt right now."
Gene laughed. "Sure. Although I should say no, I know how you look in those. You'll distract half the team."
I got to the stadium just before five o'clock, and a security guard let me through the entrance. I found Gene in the main rotunda, near the entrance to the Spartan Hall of Champions, a sort of Hall of Fame at the team level. He was dressed in what I guess could best be called office casual, a Spartans polo shirt and slacks.
"Gene, thanks for finding the time," I said, offering him a handshake. "How's the team looking?" I asked. I usually try not to get right down to business. Of course I was a fan, but business was my main concern, I just didn’t want to jump right to it.
"The preseason went well, and I think we've got a shot at a playoff run. A lot's going to depend on our line play, we're pretty thin on backups there. If some of our rookies continue to develop, Coach thinks we can go deep."
"Good to hear," I replied. "So, you said we could watch some of practice?"
"Sure, I doubt you're a spy from Oakland," he said with a laugh. "Come on."
It was pleasant inside Spartans Stadium, as the late summer slash early fall weather was taking hold. It was warm enough that I could feel it on my face, but not the stifling heat of mid-summer. Still, I knew why Mark was wearing warmer tops under his vest when he went out on night patrols, the early morning hours were still starting to be chilly.
Down on the field, I saw as the players were stretching out in helmets, t-shirts and shorts. "Reminds me of a high school boyfriend," I told Gene as we took a seat on one of the benches that made up a lot of the so-called cheap seats. Spartan Stadium had been built with a very old fashioned feel, but still had a lot of high tech and modern conveniences. "He played football when I was a junior."
"Oh? Knowing you, he was the star quarterback."
I chuckled and shook my head. "Nope, wrong there. Actually my boyfriend at the time wasn't even a starter, he played backup defensive end and a lot of special teams. We first started talking because of a time like this."
"What do you mean?" Gene asked. He sat down on the bleacher bench next to me, his eyes on the field. "Wasn't paying attention at practice?"
"No, actually he was the most dedicated guy on the team. Showed up early, made every off season lift, everything like that. But we had a pretty stacked team that year, and the guys in front of him were two seniors who ended up both of them going on to play Division I ball. So Alex sat the bench a lot. Anyway, a couple of my girlfriends and I used the stadium to run back then, and he and I started talking after one of these Thursday walk-throughs. We dated for most of my junior year."
"What happened senior year?" Gene asked curiously.